The field of the invention is cleaning apparatus for magnetic tape recorders and playback units, and particularly, cleaning cassettes for video cassette players.
Cassette players include a series of rollers which drive and guide the magnetic tape along a path which includes one or more recording or playback heads. After extended use, the metal oxide material on the magnetic tape along with airborne contaminants build up a deposit on these rollers and heads which can interfere with both the record and playback process. These deposits can most effectively be removed with a cleaning solvent to restore the video and audio quality of the recording. Until recently, such cleaning was performed by authorized service centers which disassembled the equipment and manually cleaned each element in the tape path.
As d sclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,141,053, 3,955,214 and 4,149,206, it is well known to provide apparatus in the form of a cassette cleaner unit which may be inserted into audio cassette players. In audio cassette players there is a single standard configuration for the cassette and the tape path. In addition, the record and/or playback head is readily accessible for cleaning and a single cassette cleaner unit with a mechanical apparatus for wiping the head will service all audio cassette players.
Video cassette players present a number of difficulties which precludes the use of cleaner units similar to those used on audio cassette players. First, there are two standard video cassette player units on the market; one is referred to herein as the "Beta" unit and the other is referred to herein as the "VHS" unit. Each of these units accepts a mechanically unique cassette and the tape path is totally different for each type. This requires two mechanically unique cassette cleaner units to service the entire market. Furthermore, the heads and rollers in the tape path of both VHS and Beta units are inaccessible for manual cleaning apparatus, and cleaning is accomplished by drawing a cleaning filament through the tape path where it engages and cleans all of the operable elements.
There are two cleaning techniques presently employed to clean video cassette players. In one, a dry filament material is drawn through the tape path, and in the other, the filament is saturated with a liquid cleaning agent before drawing it through the tape path. While the "wet" cleaning method can be very effective, the liquid cleaning agent must be applied to the filament by the user just prior to each cleaning.